


Steady

by BrosleCub12



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 03, Sherlock is doing his best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 06:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4735673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrosleCub12/pseuds/BrosleCub12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever it is John wants to say, it must be important and he puts all the files aside, watches John, his patience preserved - always preserved - for his friend and all that he’s lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steady

**Author's Note:**

> A typical, garden-variety hurt/comfort fic, following the death of a loved one. If you'd like more detailed warnings just to be safe, please scroll to the bottom to read them. Caution for bereavement and a little bit of swearing. 
> 
> I originally posted this on LiveJournal and the lovely nox_candida made some wonderful suggestions of possible improvements, which I really appreciate; as such, I'm dedicating this to her. As is glaringly obvious by now, I always love a good hug fic and - well, here we are. Simple, but as ever, I'll accept any feedback that's offered.

 

‘Sherlock,’ says John – or at least a rough approximation to John’s voice. It makes Sherlock look up from the case-files that Mycroft has left him with - all of which pertain to Moriarty – in something like slight surprise. It’s been four weeks since Mary Morstan died (since the baby died, by horrible default) and three weeks and five days since John came back to 221B and since then, the doctor has hardly spoken a word.

John is… John is fidgety now, he’s not calm and ramrod straight – well, understandably so. He’s thinner (worrying; his jumpers are that little bit bigger on him), and less-groomed; forgets to shave, sometimes. Possibly could do with a haircut. Still. Things are difficult and for a man like John to have lost his family in one fell blow is an understatement of the fact.

Whatever it is John wants to say, it must be important and he puts all the files aside, watches John, his patience preserved - _always_ preserved - for his friend and all that he’s lost.

(Maybe he wants to move out? Maybe living here – with Sherlock – simply isn’t good enough anymore? Sherlock had just assumed that John would want to stay, even if just for a few weeks, but maybe he simply doesn’t?

He doesn’t want to think that might be the case. He doesn’t like to think that might be the case. But facts are fact and how John Watson feels is simply how he feels).

He watches, torn between that ever-present interest at human-behaviour and what is, when it comes to John, very natural concern; the way his friend grips the back of the chair opposite, for instance. The way he’s looking at the floor, rather than at him; avoiding his eyes – in the way he only does when he’s embarrassed, or angry, or upset. Even from here, even with John’s dull pallor, there’s an odd colour to his cheeks. Sherlock wonders why. Does he need to eat? Is he ill? Grief makes a person ill, doesn’t it? Why won’t he look at Sherlock?

(The day they put Redbeard down, he had cried and cried until he was spectacularly sick, all over Mycroft’s lap. Part of him – a very small part – had been fascinated by that, that his body had reacted in such a way to the upset, to the stress, but the rest of him had been left devastated, hollow, by the sight of an empty basket, and a no-longer-needed-collar that the vet had handed over with a small, sympathetic smile).

 _Tell me,_ he wants to say to John, _tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it, or fix what I can._ He feels an anxious flipflop in his stomach, because clearly, by the way he’s behaving, _John_ is anxious, or some variation thereof and Sherlock doesn’t like that, not at all. What is it he wants to say that he’s having so much trouble saying?

‘Sherlock…’ John’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, another reflexive gesture. Sherlock raises his eyebrows in response. _Yes, hello. I’m here._

‘Look,’ John says and Sherlock can’t help it; his right hand tightens and he lowers it to his lap, because when someone – when John – starts a sentence with the word _look,_ it means unhappiness. It means look _, just shut up a minute and listen,_ it means _I have something to say and you’re not going to like it, but I’m going to say it anyway._

(In the past, it’s meant _Look, Sherlock love, Redbeard is very, very poorly and there’s nothing they can do;_ it’s meant _Look Sherlock buddy, you’re going to have to sit somewhere else at breakfast;_ it’s meant _Look, brother mine, you have a persistent problem with drugs and at some point, you **will** need to admit it)._

‘I know that…’ John’s left hand is twitching, trembling, in that funny way it always does, ‘I’ve got no right, because I’ve been such a – well, a complete wanker recently…’

Sherlock blinks.

 _No right to what?_   _And anyway, we've both been wankers,_ he thinks, because they both have, he knows _he_ has, what with faking his death and all. But then doesn’t grief and stress and bereavement do that to a person? And considering all that John’s dealing with at present…

‘Would you…?’ John’s voice trails off and Sherlock raises his eyebrows, sits to attention in his seat. There’s a something there – a request. As John huffs, tongue between his teeth; his hands come up and he squeezes the bridge of his nose. Sherlock frowns; would he _what?_

(Help John pack up his things? Call John a cab to take him away from here? Just go away and leave John alone?)

‘I mean… please, Sherlock, don’t – don’t laugh,’ John adds then and Sherlock has really _got_ to stop blinking now. Why would he laugh? Why on earth would he laugh at his best – his only friend – standing in front of him now, grieving and permanently severed from both wife and child? Honestly, Sherlock knows he’s considerably terrible, in his ways, but does John really think that even he would do something like _that?_

‘But…’ John bites the words between his teeth. ‘Basically, I wondered...’ He raises his eyes to meet Sherlock’s with something like reluctance, or maybe even shame; _wondered what?_ ‘Could I…not saying you have to and you can tell me to piss off if you want… but could I – maybe, sorry...’

_What?_

John’s tongue is between his teeth. Sherlock thinks of bells, and the swing downwards towards their final chime.

‘... Ask you for a hug?’

Sherlock stills.

_Oh._

‘Yeah, I know,’ John is saying and he’s looking tired and haunted and utterly, utterly defeated; Sherlock must be staring, he doesn’t mean to, but he is. ‘I know, it’s stupid and daft and I probably need to _not_ ask you that right now, because you’re busy and I’m sorry, I’ve got no _oh, hello.’_

Which, to be fair, is a rather understandable reaction after Sherlock has surged upwards, stepped across in two strides and wrapped John up in his arms without any further question, pulling his friend against him in an attempt at both anchorage and safety. In fact, contrary to popular belief, Sherlock _does_ actually know the art of hugging; it’s just that most of the time, people try and hug _him,_ rather than the other way around (and kiss his cheek on occasion, which he hates from a stranger and has created more than one awkward situation when he’s pulled away from a grateful client’s insistent attempts at such). The hug that Lestrade have given him on his return was unexpected and strange and Sherlock… hadn’t really known how to react to that one, and they hadn’t spoken about it again.

But John – oh, for _John._ Frankly, John can have as many hugs as he likes.

For a moment, John seems stunned in Sherlock’s arms, but then his own come up in turn and he wraps them around Sherlock’s shoulders, good and tight and Sherlock feels him bury his face in his shoulder, briefly cups the back of his neck, his head, as John leans into him, against him; feels an odd sense of pride that for everything else that’s gone wrong, _this_ at least is something that he can get right.

‘Is that all?’ he asks finally, mostly amused but just a little insulted by his friend’s hesitance and he hears John give a slight _something_ – a lively huff, maybe, or even a dry chuckle. Or just a tuneless sound, in concession (or possibly apology); one that lifts his shoulders for a single second.

‘Thanks,’ he mutters back and they leave it there, Sherlock sparing John the platitudes of _you’ll be okay/it’s going to be okay –_ because he doesn’t know, really and at this point, it’s simply patronising to John. But he _does_ hold on and in that sense he gives his best friend something to hold onto in turn; both of them savouring that pleasant warmth that comes with holding someone you trust, even if just for a moment.  

(Sherlock hopes though. Hopes that, deep down, it will – eventually – be okay).

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic alludes to the death of a spouse (Mary) and also, the loss of the Watson baby as a result, and focuses on the aftermath of such a loss.


End file.
